As the Cold War came to an end, US President George H.W. Bush defined his 1992 election bid in terms of the War on Drugs. It was said that there was no longer a Soviet foe to grapple with and that, instead, illegal narcotics now posed an existential threat to the American people.
Yet as it turns...
*WARNING: This episode includes adult themes and explicit words.*
Why did Henry VIII want everyone to know about his wet dreams? What animal product were condoms made from? And was coffee really ruining the sex lives of wives?
Suzannah Lipscomb from our sister podcast, Not Just the Tudors, join...
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European slave traders forcibly uprooted millions of African people and shipped them across the Atlantic in conditions of great cruelty. Today, on the bottom of the world’s oceans lies the lost wrecks of ships that carried enslaved people from Africa to the Am...
There’s not an infinite number of ways that humans can act on sexual desire. Human bodies haven’t changed, but the cultural landscape around sex has. What people believed about it, the morality surrounding it, and the paraphernalia concerning it have all changed a lot. Sex has a history, and Hist...
Described as the "most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years", an elaborately decorated 5000 year-old chalk cylinder, discovered buried with 3 child skeletons in Yorkshire and as old as the first phase of Stonehenge, is going on display at the British Mus...
Agincourt is a name which conjures an image of plucky English archers taking on and defeating the arrogant and aristocratic knights of the French court. But was it really the David and Goliath struggle often depicted on stage and screen?
In this episode of the podcast, Dan is joined by Mike Loa...
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week this month, and Jimmy will be joined by a selection of guests who will tell us how nature can have an impact our bodies and our minds.
First up, it’s gardener and psychiatrist Sue Stuart-Smith, author of the bestselling book, The Well Gardened Mind.
Gardening h...
Staples, paper clips, and washers - small inventions that improve our everyday lives and have even saved lives. In this episode Dallas is joined by author Helen Pilcher to talk about the origins of these tiny, lifer altering inventions and the impact felt still. From the use of ant heads to stop ...
Stalin, the 'Man of Steel' and supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century, is readily associated with his ruthless regime inside the USSR, and with his fierce opposition to Western Europe and the United States during the Cold War. Commonly, however, this is set aside for narrati...
The rise of Christianity in the first few centuries AD is one of the most significant stories in world history. But it’s also an incredibly turbulent one. It’s a story filled with (in)famous episodes of conflict with the Roman state. It’s a story of co-existence, but also one of intolerance and o...
*WARNING this episode includes adult themes and conversations about mental health and drug use.*
In 2020, the UK government revealed that 17% of the adult population of Britain were prescribed medication for their mental health. But when were these drugs invented? How were they tested? And how h...
John Donne (1572-1631) lived myriad lives. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral – and pe...
The Falkland Islands lie 8000 miles from Britain making the Falklands War a particularly tricky one to fight; it required some seriously innovative thinking. No story from the Falklands better tells the story of that innovation than Operation Blackbuck which ran from the 30th of April 1982 to the...
In Norse mythology, the Valkyries determine who lived and who died on the battlefield. Translated as “Chooser of the Fallen” in Old Norse, they’re often depicted as supernatural women who guide the souls of deceased soldiers worthy enough of a place in Valhalla, to feast with the god Odin.
Today...
Humans have been protecting their feet for a very long time.
But over the years the types of footwear we choose have developed and multiplied. Each new shoe has a new use, and often a new social meaning.
So what is the history of shoes? To find out about the masculine beginnings of heels, the r...
As the reality of atrocities in Ukraine continues to be uncovered, we look back at a massacre of Polish officers in the Second World War, the truth of which continues to be exposed to this day. Under the orders of Stalin, the NKVD underwent a secret operational order, which to this very day is st...
On this day 40 years ago the HMS Conqueror, a British nuclear submarine, propelled silently through the South Atlantic stalking the Argentinian light cruiser the ARA General Belgrano
in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands. At 2.57 pm Conqueror was given the order to torpedo the enemy warship. W...
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919), was an American politician, conservationist and writer. After the assassination of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in September 1901 - he won a second term in 1904 and ser...
Many of us became familiar with robots through science fiction — R2D2, C3PO, Rosie from the Jetsons, Marvin the Paranoid Android. In comparison, it can feel like the robots we actually interact with today fall a bit short of this imagined future.
In this episode we are joined by Dr Beth Singler,...
Kale, Cod-liver oil, Goji-berries, Chia seeds...the list of so-called superfoods continues to grow. But how healthy are these wonder ingredients, and could they just be super-hyped?
Jimmy is joined by his Food Unwrapped co-host, Kate Quilton, on his farm today to talk about 'healthy' food and di...
Poetry, parables, and produce - how did someone live a healthy life in the ancient Greco-Roman world? Tristan is joined by author Mark Usher to talk about what we can learn from our ancient ancestors. Discussing the impact farming has on both physical and mental well-being, the role it played in ...
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Henry ‘Chips’ Channon documented British High Society in eye-watering detail. His diaries are gossipy, sometimes vile, rude but always honest. Even after his death, his diaries struck fear into the British upper classes and it is only recently t...
We put man on the moon, before we invented a wheeled suitcase.
So, why did it take so long? Well, the research of today’s guest suggests entrenched, gendered attitudes made the embrace of this idea even slower.
Who had the very first boob job? Why were women injecting liquid paraffin into their chests? And, how has the procedure developed over time?
Kate is joined Betwixt the Sheets by Professor Ruth Holliday and cosmetic surgeon Professor Vikram Devaraj to find out the bumpy history of breast augmenta...
